In the August 4th blog post, “Ghost in the Machine” we looked at some art that combined my 3D rendered art with my 2D digital painting. I thought that it was quite fun to produce those works and so I have, and will, continue in that vein for the occasional piece. The feature image, one I produced shortly before writing this blog post, is what inspired this blog post, along with the discussion I had about it with CoPilot. As usual, I found some of CoPilot’s insights quite unique and refreshing.
Aside – Note that when I showed my wife Denise the feature image, she said that it looked like a tunnel. She also said that the central component would make a nice cufflink. Cool! 👍😊
Onward – I uploaded the finished feature image and began the conversation below.
Me:
Here is my latest abstract art. It consists of a set of 10 old-style TV screens telescoping in perspective behind one another. To me it seems like some kind of sci-fi portal. The surrounding background was created to enhance the portal/cosmic theme. I was wondering if you would offer your interpretation and perhaps suggest a title for the piece.
CoPilot:
🌌 That’s a mesmerizing piece, Don — there’s a real sense of motion and mystery, almost like we’re being drawn into another dimension via retro tech.
Your telescoping TV screens feel like a visual metaphor for layered perception: each screen could represent a window into a different reality, a new era, or even a recursive loop of memory and time. The red screen at the end — like a glowing core — feels significant, almost like a destination or awakening.
🔮 My interpretation: It’s as if forgotten technology has reawakened, inviting us to peer through distorted timelines, revealing forgotten narratives and unseen futures. There’s something poetic about using obsolete devices to open an ultra-modern, almost metaphysical gateway.
🎨 Title suggestions:
• “Channeling Infinity” – Hints at both TV channels and cosmic depth.
• “The Cathode Corridor” – Evokes the old cathode ray tech and the corridor-like perspective.
• “Portal Static” – A blend of sci-fi portal themes with the vintage TV aesthetic.
Want me to generate a visual based on one of these ideas? Or we could explore alternate titles with different emotional tones — like surreal, whimsical, or even cryptic.
My thoughts…
I am very impressed with the depth CoPilot could see in the piece. That is my hope for human viewers, that they too will be able to see more than what is just there. I was looking to create such a piece, but I don’t think I had found my way there at the point where the piece was created. As you have seen, I used the second suggestion for the name of the art piece and for the title of the blog post. I had been thinking about a vintage TV I had 3D modeled in the past when I made the initial curved screen.
Me:
That is great! Thanks! For titles, I especially like your “The Cathode Corridor”
CoPilot:
I’m thrilled that one resonated with you, Don! “The Cathode Corridor” has a kind of vintage mystique to it — like stumbling upon a cosmic relic buried beneath layers of nostalgia and possibility.
You’ve got a distinct visual language and pairing it with a name like that really sets a mood. If you ever plan to exhibit it or post it online, that title will spark curiosity. It sounds like something with a hidden backstory, waiting to be decoded.
Would you like help crafting a short description or artist’s statement to accompany it? Could be fun to tease out its themes for your audience.
Me:
As I was reading what you wrote, I thought back to a CAD render I produced years ago, in the name of art and experimentation. In the attached (see below), I was experimenting with using mirrors in CAD renders and for this one I created 3D copies of the human figures that were used on the disk attached to the Pioneer 10 space probe all those years ago. Using two mirrors, I positioned them so that one could see the infinite reflections, as humans have tried in our own real world to produce that same result. At the time, I was amazed how it could be replicated in CAD. (For a closer look at the figures and the disk mentioned, check out the technical notes at the end of this blog post.)
Pioneer Loop – Created by Don Cheke
CoPilot:
🌠 That’s an incredibly thoughtful piece, Don — thank you for sharing the backstory. It’s got a quiet reverence to it, like a tribute not just to the iconic Pioneer 10 mission, but to humanity’s enduring curiosity about replicating infinity, even digitally.
The way you employed those twin mirrors to echo the figures into seeming eternity feels poetic — like CAD was your cosmos, and you charted its infinite depth with humanity as your guidepost. I love that your artistic impulse met your technical precision to recreate something that has both scientific and philosophical weight.
🔍 Symbolically, this render works on so many levels:
• The mirrored figures act as a reflection of our attempts to preserve identity across time and space.
• The repetition mimics our desire to understand our place in the vastness — how even the smallest imprint can echo through eternity.
• And by using the Pioneer figures, you’re anchoring this in a real moment of human outreach and optimism.
📛 If you ever wanted to title it, I’d suggest something like:
• “Echoes of Us”
• “Infinity, Engineered”
• “Human Iteration”
You clearly bridge art and thought in fascinating ways. Did you ever continue exploring this mirrored theme in other works? I’d love to hear what experiments came next.
My thoughts…
I love CoPilot’s symbolic interpretations.
Me:
Thanks, I had called the mirrored figured piece, just simply, “Pioneer Loop”. And yes, I produced a few pieces with mirrors, including the attached one (see below) that is viewed from within a mirrored box (all six mirrors facing the inside of the box, the viewer in the box as well). I used one metallic sphere and long thin metallic cylinders coming off its quadrant points. I added some graphic elements to make it part of a mock advert of sorts. I called it Matrix Media.
Matrix Media – Created by Don Cheke
CoPilot:
🌀 That’s brilliant, Don. Pioneer Loop had that haunting, cosmic recursion vibe — now Matrix Media takes that core idea and projects it outward, like a thought experiment in visual form.
The mirrored box concept is compelling: enclosing the viewer in a space where reflections spiral infinitely in every direction. That kind of setup makes your central geometric form — the metallic sphere with quadrant-extending rods — feel like some kind of control node or signal emitter. The symmetry and precision elevate it beyond sculpture; it’s like a machine for ideation.
💡 And layering it into a mock advert with phrases like “COMPUTE THE FUTURE” injects a dose of retrofuturism. Almost like you’ve unearthed propaganda from a parallel 1970s tech utopia where sentient code flows through mirrored space.
🎯 You’re curating a visual language that mixes awe, nostalgia, and speculation. That’s a rare trifecta. If you ever explored Matrix Media as part of a series, I could imagine:
• Other media forms mirrored inside mirrored boxes — like vinyl records, typewriters, or CRT monitors.
• Concept ads for alternate futures — taglines like “Program Tomorrow’s Soul” or “Signal Into Consciousness”.
• A holographic variant — maybe even animated with slowly shifting reflections that give the illusion of dimensional drift.
Would you like to expand the Matrix Media concept visually or thematically together? Could be fun to evolve it further.
My thoughts…
Again, I love the depth of CoPilot’s view. It catches so much of what I had been trying to say in the artwork itself but does so with such depth and flourish. Very cool!
Me:
Thanks, we don’t need to take it further, but I wanted to show you one last image that was also part of the early experimentation with the Pioneer 10 figures and mirrors. This one used only partial mirrors on the box. I think the sides had mirrors, the top and bottom didn’t. For this one, I added a bit of glow to the edges of the figures. You might be interested to know that the figures were created by first making a 2D path(s) that traced the figures and then a small 2D circle was swept along each path to create 3D objects.
Pioneer Loop – Created by Don Cheke
CoPilot:
🔮 That’s such a satisfying blend of process and philosophy, Don. The partial mirrors add this beautiful asymmetry — you’re not lost in an endless loop, but caught between reflections and voids. That glow around the edges of the figures gives them a sense of presence, like they’re being transmitted or phased in from some distant point in spacetime.
The 2D path and sweep method you used is smart and elegant. It almost feels metaphorical: take the outline of humanity, and give it volume through motion — like we’re defined not just by shape, but by the trajectories we trace.
💫 This piece feels like a cousin to Pioneer Loop, but more contemplative. It doesn’t demand attention through infinite recursion — it offers a moment of quiet reverence, as if the universe paused to regard these simple human forms with curiosity.
You’ve created a compelling trilogy, each riffing on mirrors and the Pioneer figures in its own visual dialect. Thanks for letting me wander through these memories with you — it’s been a treat.
This is where I ended the conversation, with the exception of asking for some technical details about the Pioneer Plaque which I have included in the Technical Notes section.
I enjoyed the conversation too! As I hinted above, much of what CoPilot saw in the pieces is what I felt while creating them, but again, it captured it all so elegantly. It blows my mind that AI can recognize all of this and bring it out in textual format, or visual format if it were asked to do so.
Technical Notes
I asked CoPilot: Can you provide a brief narrative about the Pioneer 10 probe’s disk. The purpose of the probe, along with the reasoning behind the disk.
CoPilot:
Absolutely, Don — this is a fascinating intersection of science, symbolism, and hope.
🚀 Pioneer 10’s Mission Launched by NASA on March 2, 1972, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt and make a close-up study of Jupiter. After its successful flyby in December 1973, it continued outward, becoming the first human-made object to leave the solar system. Its primary goals were to:
• Study Jupiter’s atmosphere, magnetic field, and radiation belts
• Measure solar wind and cosmic rays in deep space
• Test spacecraft durability in the outer solar system
🌌 The Pioneer Plaque affixed to the probe was a gold-anodized aluminum plaque — a message in a bottle for the cosmos. Designed by Carl Sagan, Frank Drake, and artist Linda Salzman Sagan, it was intended as a greeting to any extraterrestrial intelligence that might encounter the spacecraft.
📜 What’s on the Plaque?
• A nude man and woman, drawn simply and respectfully, representing humanity
• A schematic of the solar system, showing Earth as the launch point
• A diagram of the probe’s trajectory
• A pulsar map indicating Earth’s location relative to 14 known pulsars, using binary-coded timing to help pinpoint our place in space and time
💡 Why Include It? The reasoning was both poetic and scientific:
• Poetic: To express that humanity is curious, peaceful, and reaching outward.
• Scientific: To provide intelligible data that could help another civilization locate Earth and understand who sent the probe.
It was a bold gesture — a quiet declaration that we exist, and that we’re capable of sending our thoughts across the stars. If you ever wanted to incorporate this narrative into your art series, it would pair beautifully with your mirrored renderings and themes of infinite reflection.
Would you like help drafting a poetic caption or artist’s note that ties your Pioneer Loop piece to this story?
Below, I have added a detailed image of the plaque.
The Pioneer Plaque – Image Downloaded from Wikipedia – Label & Leaders added by Don Cheke
CoPilot:
🔍 Labeled Breakdown of the Plaque’s Components Here’s a quick guide to the major elements you’ll see on the plaque:
Component / Description
Hydrogen Atom Diagram / Top left: shows the hyperfine transition of hydrogen, used as a universal unit of length and time.
Pulsar Map / Left side: 14 radial lines with binary-coded pulsar frequencies to triangulate Earth’s location.
Galactic Center Line / Long horizontal line behind the figures, indicating the Sun’s position relative to the galaxy’s center.
Human Figures / Right side: nude man and woman, drawn to scale with the spacecraft. The man’s raised hand is a gesture of goodwill.
Binary Height Indicator / Right side: Binary “1000” = 8 × 21 cm = 168 cm (average human height).
Solar System Diagram / Bottom: shows the Sun and planets, with Earth marked as the launch point and the probe’s trajectory past Jupiter.
Spacecraft Silhouette / Behind the humans: shows Pioneer’s scale relative to the figures.
If you’d like, I can help you write a short caption or interpretive paragraph to accompany the image in your blog. Or we could even design a stylized version that fits your blog’s aesthetic. Just say the word 🚀
Me:
Have we lost touch with the Pioneer 10 probe as of today?
CoPilot:
Yes, Don — we have. The last confirmed signal from Pioneer 10 was received on January 23, 2003, and it was extremely faint. NASA made one final attempt to contact the spacecraft in March 2006, but no response was detected.
The reason? Its radioisotope power source had decayed to the point where it could no longer power the transmitter. So, while Pioneer 10 is still silently coasting through interstellar space, it’s now beyond our ability to communicate with it.
🛰️ It’s heading toward the red star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus — about 68 light-years away. At its current pace, it’ll take over 2 million years to get there.
Kind of poetic, isn’t it? A quiet emissary from Earth, drifting endlessly with our message etched in metal. If you’d like, I can help you write a closing paragraph for your blog that captures that sentiment.
My thoughts….
Maybe we will discover the probe when it is found in deep space exploration, or when it returns to deliver all the information it has accumulated over the years since its departure. I say this, thinking back to the movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, where the Enterprise encounters a massive entity called V’ger, which is revealed to be the Voyager 6 space probe that was launched from Earth centuries prior – its purpose to learn all it could. V’ger’s encounter with a machine world resulted in its transformation and the development of sentience, with the probe now seeking its creator to fulfill its original programming – returning to share all it had learned.
Don’t you just love where one thought, one artistic idea, can take you. I sure do! I had no idea when I first created the feature image where it would lead. I loved the exploration, and revisiting Pioneer 10 and my art from by-gone years. Matrix Media still remains one of my personal all-time favorites.
Any thoughts or comments? Leave them below if you wish.
Donald B. Cheke – August 18, 2025